1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a method for coating a medical device such as a braided suture and an apparatus for coating a medical device.
2. Background of Related Art
Medical devices intended for the repair of body tissues must meet certain requirements: they must be substantially non-toxic, capable of being readily sterilized, they must have good tensile strength and if they are of the absorbable or biodegradable variety, the absorption or biodegradation of the device must be closely controlled. An example of a particularly useful medical device is sutures.
Sutures have been constructed from a wide variety of materials including surgical gut, silk, cotton, a polyolefin such as polypropylene, polyamide, polyglycolic acid, polyesters such as polyethylene terephthalate and glycolide-lactide copolymer, etc. Some materials are suitable for preparing monofilament sutures, while sutures manufactured from other materials are provided as braided structures. For example, sutures manufactured from silk, polyamide, polyester and bioabsorbable glycolide-lactide copolymer are usually provided as multifilament braids.
Currently available braided suture products are acceptable in terms of their tensile strength and ability to be sterilized. However, they can be difficult to coat from a processing standpoint due to the small interstitial spaces present between each individual filament that may be difficult to penetrate.
It would be advantageous to have more effective methods for coating medical devices, especially multifilament medical devices.